File Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on as he holds a news conference at the Prime Minister s office in Jerusalem. AP
Hossam Badran told AFP that Hamas was in the process of conducting internal dialogues within its leadership and with allied militant groups before negotiators return to Cairo to continue negotiations towards a truce.
But he warned that Netanyahu's repeated statements insisting he will send troops into the territory's far southern city of Rafah were calculated to "thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement".
"Netanyahu was the obstructionist in all previous rounds of dialogue and previous negotiations, and it is clear that he still is," he said in a telephone interview.
"He is not interested in reaching an agreement, and therefore he says words in the media to thwart these current efforts."
Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have proposed a deal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange Israeli captives for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, according to details released earlier by Britain.
The outcome of the indirect negotiations has remained highly uncertain, with back and forth over the number of captives that could be released, and profound differences over the scope of any agreement.
Badran reiterated that Hamas's goal remains a lasting ceasefire and "a complete and comprehensive withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip".
That aim is at odds with the stated position of Netanyahu, who has vowed the army will keep attacking Gaza, including Rafah, where some 1.5 million civilians are sheltering in cramped conditions.
But after months of stop-start negotiations, the head of Hamas's political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, said Thursday that the group would "soon" send a delegation back to Egypt aiming for a deal that "realises the demands of our people".
Haniyeh further said that Hamas was studying the latest proposal from Israel in a "positive spirit".
Any deal reached would be the first since a one-week truce in November.
Israel has killed more than 34,622 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, during almost seven months of war.
The tally includes at least 26 deaths in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, adding that 77,867 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out.
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